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A Comparative Analysis of the Three Waves of the AtlasIntel Study for Edge Institute
As the saying goes, numbers don’t lie. And when the numbers keep repeating the same message on every occasion, that message becomes undeniable. Over the past six months, few figures in Romania have stayed the same. Whether we look at fiscal and budgetary data, political polls, or other kinds of statistics, many of them have moved into entirely different brackets. Yet one thing remains constant amid all this turmoil, as shown by the three AtlasIntel surveys for Edge Institute from November 2025, March 2026, and June 2026: Romanians’ digital optimism holds firm, and the need for authorities to act remains just as pressing.
And since we’re on the subject of constants, a question we asked six months ago is just as relevant today: could digital transformation be a potential catalyst for a new national consensus? At a time when Romania is moving from one change to the next, through crises and uncertainty, is digital transformation a fulcrum, a common denominator for the country’s national project? The analysis below attempts to partly answer this question, offering a comparative look at how Romanians’ perceptions of digital transformation have evolved over this roughly six-month cycle.
Digital optimism isn’t fading, quite the opposite
Ever since positive views of digital transformation crossed into the 70-percent range, they have held remarkably steady. Back in 2024, around 65% of Romanians considered digitalization beneficial or highly beneficial; today, 3 in 4 Romanians view it favorably. Across our study’s three waves, positive ratings have followed a slightly uneven but unbroken upward path: 72.6% in November 2025, a peak of 78.5% in March 2026, and 75.4% in June 2026. Regardless of the broader context, then, three-quarters of Romanians consistently believe that digitalization is, in itself, a good thing.
Few reforms or public-policy projects in Romania command this level of legitimacy. Such a strong reserve of public goodwill undoubtedly needs to be converted into a solid policy agenda. The only notable shift is the return of negative views to 11.2% in June, after they had dropped to 4.2% in March; a signal that enthusiasm, while resilient, is not unlimited and needs concrete follow-through to be sustained.
Digital skills: digitalization’s Achilles’ heel
The latest wave of the AtlasIntel study arrives at just the right time. As the European Commission’s most recent report on the Digital Decade shows, Romania posted only a modest 4-point gain in basic digital skills among the population over the past year. On a base of roughly 3 in 10 Romanians (31%, to be precise) who hold the minimum set of knowledge and priority skills for the digital era, there is still substantial room for progress. Romanians, however, are somewhat more optimistic about their own abilities. Self-assessed digital skills have improved consistently from one wave to the next.
The share of people describing their skills as low or very low has nearly halved, falling from 19.1% in November 2025 to 10.1% in June 2026, while the “medium” segment has grown steadily (from 41.1% to 44.4% over the same period). Positive self-perception peaks in March 2026 (47.5% rating their skills high or very high), with a slight correction in June (45.5%).
While young people, understandably, remain the most confident in rating their own skills highly, a moderate level of digital proficiency is also reported by older respondents; about 7 in 10 people over 60 believe they use these skills competently. Meanwhile, the diaspora rates its own skills more than 10 percentage points above the national average.
From errand-runner for the state to digital citizenship: what e-government means for Romanians
We’ve often cited the finding that Romanians need, on average, a full day of annual leave just to sort out various issues with the state. This gap, between a state that digitizes bureaucracy rather than the citizen’s experience, and a citizen who wants the state to act more as a support system than as a courier shuttling paperwork between institutions, drives a fundamentally utilitarian view of digital transformation. One clear example: support for a model of state digitalization that would eliminate the need for in-person visits to counters rose markedly from November 2025 (68.7%), reaching 82.3%in March 2026 before settling at 77.5% in June. Likewise, Romanians want to stop acting as their own “case manager,” ferrying paperwork between different counters and offices, and 62.9% consider this a priority; a share that has stayed constant across all three waves. An emerging pillar in Romanians’ outlook is the parallel between digitalization and core principles of a democratic state, such as transparency: 41.7% now include automatic budget transparency as part of their very definition of digitalization.
The digital state’s slow coming of age, in Romanians’ view
Romania’s digital state, in theory, came of age long ago. As far back as the 1990s, Romania had ministers dedicated to the information society. The letter “D” has appeared, over the years, in the acronyms of numerous agencies and ministries tasked with shaping the country’s digital agenda. Yet the process has stalled, and Romanians’ views on this have stayed fairly constant, even as their perceptions grow more nuanced as social change unfolds.
Assessments of Romania’s current level of digitalization have shifted from “limited” to “partial.” In November 2025, most respondents described Romania as “not very digitalized” (51.8%); by March and June 2026, the majority view had shifted to “partially digitalized” (43.3% and 40.8%, respectively). The combined share of those who see some meaningful degree of digitalization has risen from 35.7% to roughly 49–52%, a sign of a gradually more mature, though still not optimistic, perception: only 8.6% consider Romania “fairly” or “very” digitalized.
Pace, however, remains the millstone hanging around the neck of Romania’s digital state. The sharpest numbers in the entire survey, across every wave, concern this very issue of pace. In all three waves, more than 8 in 10 Romanians describe the process as “slow” or “very slow” (84.3% → 86.6% → 81.6%). The slight easing seen in June comes alongside a modest, though still marginal, rise in those who rate the pace as fast or very fast (from about 4% to 6.8%), but the underlying perception remains that of a state moving far too slowly relative to expectations.
Is digitalization a “double-edged sword” for citizens? From time saved to data security
As a process, digitalization brings Romanians many perceived benefits. Their relative ranking has stayed constant across all three waves, even as their intensity has grown. “Saving time / no more lines at the counter” becomes the leading benefit in 2026 (79.1% in March, 66.0% in June), up from 50.5% in November 2025. Notably, “better communication with institutions” keeps climbing, from 19.6% to 24.2% and then to 33.3%, a sign that citizens increasingly see a link between transparency and the country’s digital policy.
Risks, too, have come to the fore. While in November 2025 Romanians’ main fears leaned toward socio-economic concerns (harm to vulnerable groups, job losses, technology dependence), a new trend emerged starting in March 2026. Today, these concerns center overwhelmingly on the safety of personal data: unauthorized access to personal data has become the top perceived risk (56.9% in March, 52.3% in June), followed by dependence on social media and fear of disinformation. In our view, this reflects a double gap: the absence of a command center to steer the country’s digital efforts, and the absence of a communication hub capable of building strategic buy-in in society and properly addressing public concerns.
Infrastructure, yes. Institutions… not so much
The map of how key aspects of digitalization are rated is remarkably stable, and it highlights a striking contrast. Internet quality remains the undisputed strong point (78-80% rated “good” or “very good” across all waves). At the opposite end, the digitalization of public institutions is consistently the weak link, though perceptions have improved slightly: the share rating it “poor/very poor” drops from around 65% in November to about 51% in June. Romanians regularly use private-sector digital services, which raises their expectations, while the state continues to lag behind in this comparison. This gap in experience accounts for a good part of the overall tension.
Even though Romanians see institutional digitalization in patchy terms, they still grasp the architecture of digital governance. When asked what role each relevant actor plays in accelerating the country’s digital transformation, Romanians outline a coherent and sound hierarchy. Some fluctuations do stand out, though: the role of the Romanian Government and the Prime Minister as the leading pillar of digital transformation drops by 10 percentage points in this new wave, while the role of political parties rises by more than 8%, and the role of the European Union by over 4%. Unsurprisingly, the political crisis Romania is going through is making itself felt here as well.
The preference for online keeps growing
Asked to choose between an online and an in-person version of various services, respondents show an overwhelming preference for virtual options. This is especially true for interactions with the state, where the preference for virtual contact has jumped sharply. One of the study’s most telling findings concerns this online-versus-in-person choice. The preference for interacting with the state online has strengthened considerably in 2026: for services such as scheduling an appointment at a state hospital or obtaining documents from the local city hall, the share who rank the online option among their preferences rose from about 33% and 77%, respectively (November 2025), to 82% and 87%, respectively, in June 2026. The one consistent exception is buying long-lasting goods, where most people still prefer the in-person experience (about 74%).
The pattern is clear and holds across the board, even in groups often seen as atypical in this respect: among people over 70, 99.7% prefer booking hospital appointments online; in rural areas, 84.4% prefer obtaining documents online. For citizens, online services are essentially a form of empowerment — a step away from the long-familiar ritual of the counter. They also serve as an important aid to better managing personal time. On this front, the preference for electronic services is set to keep growing, even as the share of active e-government service users remains nearly 40 points below the European average, at about a third of the population.
Usage, satisfaction, and barriers
Another constant highlighted consistently across all three waves of the study is the use of virtual services that already exist. The usage rate for digital public services is stable and high: 76.4% (November 2025), 74.6% (March 2026), and 77.6% (June 2026). The mix of services used has shifted, though: paying taxes remains in first place, while scheduling an appointment for an ID card or passport becomes the second most frequent service (49.6% → 50.7%), and obtaining official documents grows in frequency (26.3% → 32.7%).
Satisfaction follows the same uneven trajectory as overall perceptions. The share of satisfied respondents rises from 53.7% in November to a peak of 70.9% in March, before dropping to 61.9% in June. At the same time, both dissatisfaction (5.0% → 15.5%) and the “very satisfied” segment (6.8% → 16.0%) are growing, pointing to a polarization of experience: more and more users report either very good experiences or clearly negative ones, at the expense of the middle ground. The lack of a unified design standard for citizen-centered digital services, along with the absence of dedicated guidelines for the digital transition of these services, may help explain these fluctuations.
Beyond these two issues, citizens also point to other structural barriers. Perceptions of these barriers have shifted as well. While in November nearly a third of citizens said the registration process was too complicated or that they didn’t know how to use these platforms, the most commonly cited reasons today for not using these services are, by a wide margin, difficulty using the applications (53.7%), redundant requests for documents (23.5%), and the requirement to show up in person (19.2%). This makes the design and execution problems behind these projects all the more apparent.
The shifting flow of digital priorities: from symbolic aspirations to practical goals
Since the country is going through difficult times economically and socially, basic needs are once again rising to the top of the list of priorities. This also explains the shift in perceptions. In November, for example, Romanians showed a strong preference for online voting, with more than 2 in 5 respondents ranking it as a top priority. Today, however, fewer than 3 in 10 Romanians see it as a priority, with preferences shifting instead toward services that save time in everyday life: scheduling hospital appointments with an accessible online medical file (50.3% → 52.5%), a single app for all personal documents (53.7% → 40.5%), online medical prescriptions (37.8% → 41.7%), and vehicle registration (33.8% → 41.2%). These responses also serve as a useful barometer of the broader social climate: symbolic issues tend to gain more traction closer to election cycles and during periods more conducive to public debate.
The digital divide and “two-speed digitalization”
In the absence of a structured digital policy, technology remains a driver of exclusion in Romania. The four socio-demographic variables this study tracks, age, education, area of residence, and income, clearly illustrate this reality. For instance, the usage rate for digital public services drops from 96% among young people aged 18–29 to 48.2% among those over 70, from 90% in urban areas to 61.5% in rural areas, from 88.5% among those with higher education to 74.4% among those without, and from 89.2% among higher earners to 68.2% among lower earners.
The typical profile of someone who doesn’t use virtual services: older, without higher education, living in a rural area, with lower income; represents exactly the demographic segment for which digital transformation could bring about a personal, professional, and even societal leap forward. From a genuine sense of empowerment to overcoming barriers to interacting with the state and accessing services that are, in the physical world, hindered by various obstacles, including geographic ones, technology could become a real force for inclusion for these citizens.
Conclusion – The digital bridge between the state and its citizens
If the three waves of the AtlasIntel study for Edge Institute send one unified message, it’s this: for Romanians, digitalization is not a buzzword. Nor is it some abstract notion, good only for empty speeches and incongruent promises. Digitalization is, in fact, the load-bearing structure of the bridge we need to build between citizens and the state. This bridge of trust, accountability, and cohesion between Romanians and their institutions is also a vital piece of infrastructure for any credible national project. And this bridge needs to be built quickly, because, as our data also shows, the perception over the past six months that this process is too slow has continued to hold at an overwhelming level.
Romanians do, indeed, take a utilitarian view of digital transformation. For them, digitalization means functional services just a click away, easier interactions with the public sector, and significant time savings. But it means something more, and the data make that clear: it means greater transparency, individual autonomy, and data-driven policy. Romania is going through not only a political crisis, but also a crisis of vision. And this is where digital technology can create fertile ground for closing that gap.
Valul curent include 2.002 respondenți, date colectate între 17–21 iunie 2026. Analiza comparativă integrează valurile anterioare. Toate cele trei valuri folosesc aceeași metodologie Atlas — recrutare digitală aleatorie — cu o marjă de eroare de ±2 p.p. la un nivel de încredere de 95%.
ⓘAcolo unde formularea întrebărilor sau lista de opțiuni s-a modificat între valuri, comparația valorică este orientativă.